Originally Posted by Jim Moore, former Press Secretary, Military Legislative Aide at U.S. Senate (1984-1986)
From the point of view of someone who worked on Capitol Hill for 14 years (House and Senate), and worked for 16 more years under four Presidents (Ds and Rs), and who is a native-born Washingtonian who still lives across the Potomac from the Nation’s Capital, I have no problem saying that House of Cards bears no resemblance whatsoever to the Hill or the presidency. None.
Nor was it supposed to. It was a fun fictional romp filled with bad guys, sex, bad women, sex, occasional shots of the real Washington, DC, sex, and a whole bunch of political nonsense (and sex) that played well outside the Beltway because that’s what the American audience wanted.
Here, inside the Beltway, we all had our favorite villains (plenty of those to go around in the real Washington) and heroes (not too many of those here in town in real-life). Many of the scenes were shot outside Washington, and that used to be one of the drinking game pleasures of House of Cards: take a shot every time someone drove across a bridge with the wrong background.
In real life, watching paint dry is a lot more interesting than watching politicians and their staffs.